Since the beginning
of my internship at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, I have
been working on analyzing CO2-flux and concentration
measurements, accumulated during an ongoing 15-year project on salt marsh
responses to elevated CO2. I read some literature concerning
topics related to the research conducted here, studied the basics about
using simple procedures of the SAS software and generating graphs in
Sigmaplot, knowledge which proved to be essential and useful for my
project.

Under the supervision
of Bert Drake and the guidance and help of Daniel Rasse, I began my
project regarding the change of CO2 concentration at a level
3-m above the ground. The data I used were measurements collected at the
research site from 1990 to 2000 between May through September of each
year. I have been studying the changes in atmospheric CO2
concentration and its correlation with meteorological variables such as
the photosynthetic flux, the temperature, the precipitation and the wind.
My data analyses revealed that the CO2 concentration steadily
increased during the 11-year period as indicated by the average of the
9am-3pm July measurements. This increase paralleled that of the Mauna Loa
atmospheric measurements for the same 11-year period. For each year, it
turned out that the 9am-3pm averaged values were highest in May and
September and lowest in July. Moreover, I found that the daily pattern of
the CO2 concentration displays a sharp drop shortly after dawn
and that daytime and nighttime CO2 concentrations differ a lot.

In general my
internship has proved to be a unique and rich life experience during which
I have acquired knowledge and skills that will be useful and important for
my career.